Rabbi Gilad Kariv,
executive director at the Israel Movement for Progressive Judaism, is currently
running for a place on the Labor Party’s Knesset list.

The basic idea is for the various religious institutions to
be recognized as voluntary associations operating on the basis of the free will
of their members and of people who avail themselves of their services.

This
institutional separation notwithstanding, the state will continue to support
the activities of the various ethnic and religious communities and religious
streams the way it does with regard to a wide variety of communal, educational
and cultural services.

But its assistance will be given on a purely egalitarian
and objective basis, without any hint of it conferring governmental status on
any religious stream or institution.

The separation between religious institutions and the organs
of state will create a proper balance between Israel as a Jewish state and its
basic democratic values, including its obligation to defend and promote freedom
of religion and conscience.

The author
is president of the Ruderman Family Foundation, which works to strengthen the
connection between Israel and American Jewry.

Israeli
Knesset members don't understand the complexity of American Jewry, and it's not
certain that those who will enter the Knesset after the upcoming election know
or understand what Israel's situation is with American Jews.

The foundation I
head, working in conjunction with Brandeis University, brought two delegations
of Knesset members from various parties to the United States to expand their knowledge
of the American Jewish community.

The Rackman Center for the Advancement of Women’s Status at the
Bar-Ilan University faculty of law has petitioned Attorney General Yehuda
Weinstein on behalf of a number of women’s organizations regarding the
composition of the assembly that chooses Israel's chief rabbis.

The group has urged the attorney general “to make certain the bodies
upon whom this is incumbent are indeed aware of their legal, social and moral
obligation to appoint women to the selection assembly.”

Despite the strong support in the
country for Tzohar, this DOES NOT MEAN RELIGIOUS FREEDOM for Jews in Israel.
(Note: See comment below from Rabbi Stanley Davids of Jerusalem who explains
this more fully). Even with a more moderate Chief Rabbinate, religious affairs
would still be controlled by an Orthodox rabbinate.

… What is really necessary is the
abolition of the Chief Rabbinate altogether along with its strangle-hold over
Israeli religious life and the disbursement of government funds almost
exclusively to Orthodox institutions. This means nurturing a religiously
pluralistic society.

Concerns have been
voiced that criteria established for the appointment of a new head of the State
Conversion Authority have been too narrowly defined, and that any candidate
seeking serious reforms will be turned away.

ITIM says that if the
incoming leadership of the State Conversion Authority “does not put forward a
bold enough vision for converting tens of thousands of Israelis of Jewish
descent,” the religious rights advocacy group will embark on a national campaign
to decentralize conversion in Israel via the legal system and the High Court of
Justice.

“These people were brought here as Jews, and they
deserve to be accepted as full members of the Jewish community,” Farber said.

“The aliya of those of
Jewish descent is not a thorn in our side, as haredim would have it, but rather
an opportunity,” he added.

“We are not
missionaries, but at this moment in Jewish history there is a halachic
imperative, particularly for those of Jewish descent who are living in Israel,
to enable as many people as want to convert to have that opportunity.”

By fall of 2006, Freund’s group was
ready to bring 218 converted Bnei Menashe Jews to Israel. But at the last
minute, the government of India protested against what it viewed as Jewish
missionary activity. The group came, but further organized immigration came to
a halt.

This remained the case until this fall,
when the Israeli government finally agreed to allow immigration to start up
again. So, what changed?

Freund insisted that the government
caved because he “was finally able to convince them that this is truly a
wondrous mitzvah, an imperative for Israel and the Jewish people.”

For those
who keep kosher it means taking a bit more responsibility and not just relying
on a piece of paper hung on the wall. If you care about this and live in or are
visiting Jerusalem, you can actually do something about it. Seek out these
restaurants (there is a list on Facebook).

When you
arrive, have a chat with the owners or one of their employees about how they
respect the laws of kashrut and their religious customers without coercion. If
people do not support them with their patronage, they will be forced to close
or submit themselves to supervisors again. If they succeed, other non-certified
restaurants will follow their lead.

There is a
real chance here for those of us fed up with financing a corrupt and venal
structure and hearing about the rabbinate's battles with Christmas trees and
belly-dancers to finally make a change.

Israel’s
chief rabbis Wednesday issued a letter of support for the Efrat organization,
which works to prevent abortions in Israel and has recently been the focus of
public controversy.

This year
they called for “making the wider public aware of the extreme seriousness
involved in killing fetuses, which is like actual murder.”

In the
letter, the rabbis instructed the marriage departments in the country’s
religious councils to continue distributing the booklet “For a Happy Marriage”
that was produced by Efrat, due to “its great importance and necessity.”

Medical issues
comprise a significant chunk of Jewish law (halacha) – and when they
concern gynecology, fertility, obstetrics, family purity and other intimate
matters, many observant women feel uncomfortable consulting with Orthodox male
rabbis.

To overcome such reticence, which could even lead to ignoring Jewish
practices because women are too shy to ask questions, the profession of female
halacha consultants (yoatzot halacha) was established a decade ago.

The service is
provided free by Nishmat – the Jerusalem Center for Advanced Study for Women –
which was founded by Rabbanit Chana Henkin.

Attorney Batya
Kahana-Dror, the executive director of Mavoi Satum, argues that "the state
cannot abandon its citizens to the goodwill of the Chief Rabbinate.

It is up to
party leaders to resolve this challenging social problem. They have to stop the
get from being used as a blackmailing tool before the couple weds and
make every couple sign the mutual respect agreement when registering their
marriage”.

After four
years of deliberations, a rabbinic court in Rishon LeTzion, Israel, awarded a husband
a 'get', and also determined that his wife’s affair with her female supervisor
was tantamount to infidelity, and therefore rejected her plea for alimony,
Mynet reports.

The game took place
last week between Elitzur Ra’anana against a team from the town of Alfei
Menashe. The two teams were ready for the first tip-off when the coach of the
Ra’anana team, who had travelled to Alfei Menashe, saw that the Alfei Menashe
team had a girl playing on the team - a rosy-cheeked blonde ten-year-old named
Shiran Grinbaum. The Ra'anana coach stopped the game. No girls allowed, he said.

Earlier this month, the Ramat Gan Family Court made Even and Amit Kama
– who had married in a civil ceremony in Canada – not only the first same-sex
couple in the country to be granted a divorce, but also the first Jewish couple
to be given a divorce by a body other than the Rabbinate.

That, say legal
experts, is a precedent-setting ruling that could erode the ultra-Orthodox
Rabbinate’s exclusive monopoly over divorce among Jews in Israel.

Even, whose initial divorce application had simply been ignored by the
Rabbinate and rejected by the Interior Ministry, says he was greatly relieved
by the ruling.

Religious gays' battle
for rabbinical and communal recognition continues to bear fruit: Rabbi Dr.
Aharon Lichtenstein, a senior Religious Zionism rabbi, has ruled that people
with homosexual inclinations should not be condemned more than Shabbat desecrators
or frauds.

According to the
rabbi, the religious public must rise above its feelings of aversion and soften
the "aggressive" attitude towards homosexuals and lesbians.

As a lifelong
Religious Zionist, I was saddened observing the ongoing collapse of the
movement which had made a unique and valuable contribution to the welfare of
the nation, upholding enlightened Jewish values, striving for unity and
promoting tolerance.

Religious
girls, though, are showing an increased interest in the IDF. The army’s
manpower division revealed in December that the number of girls attending this
year’s annual event for religious female 12th-graders was three times higher
than for the inaugural event three years ago.

This
past year, 1,728 religious girls, roughly a quarter of the graduating class of
national religious girls’ schools, joined the IDF. That number represents a 32
percent rise over the past four years and a slight bump up from pre-Gaza
disengagement numbers. And beneath the surface, many believe, the change is
even more dramatic.

Along with the other graduates of
what is often seen as one of the army’s most macho of courses will be four
women, three of whom will graduate as combat navigators and one of whom is a
flight engineer.

One of the combat navigators is the first Orthodox Jewish
woman to complete the course. In total, 16 percent of the flight program
graduates described themselves as either religious or traditional Jews.

"The hareidim get
money but don't take part in bearing the burden and we plan to change
that," the party's number-three candidate, Reuven Agassi, told Channel
10 news. The phrase "bearing the burden" is often used to refer
to IDF service.

"I don't need
anyone to pray for me," he added, a reference to the argument, common in
the hareidi world, that men who learn Torah full-time rather than serving in
the army provide the entire nation with spiritual protection.

It's also
okay to believe that yeshiva students immersed in the aura of the Torah are
more important than all the rest of us. So just say it out loud and clear and
we'll nix research budgets for the sake of yet more funding for yeshivot and
kollelim.

But just
don’t try to tell me they can all fit snuggly into the tight budgetary bundle.

Dr. Daniel Gordis
asked, “Do you have a plan for the haredi time bomb? They’re not going to the
army – but what, instead, do you have in mind for them? Some kind of national
service? Do you have a plan for getting it passed?”

Gordis also asked,
“Are you saying anything at all about the Jewish nature of the country?”

The Shas and United
Torah Judaism parties may have joined forces over the petition filed against
them over the exclusion of women in their Knesset lists, but not everyone in the
ultra-Orthodox public shares the opinion that Jewish religious laws ban women
from serving as parliament members.

A group of haredi
women believe a woman is allowed to "come out of the kitchen" and
that the halachic excuse used by the parties is "misleading the
public."

The Am Shalem party
issued the following statement in response: "We support women's right to
vote and be elected for Knesset. Many years ago, Chief Rabbi Ben-Zion Meir Hai
Uziel ruled, against the opinion of many rabbis, that women have the right to
vote and to be elected.

After decades of isolation from the broader society,
a dramatic rise has been noted in the number of haredi [ultra-orthodox] men and
women seeking academic qualifications and, subsequently, a place in the general
labor market – the men in particular.

"Due to that isolation, combined with the fact
that they are a minority group, they experience considerable difficulties
integrating into the workforce," says Reut Marciano who, together with Dr.
Dan Kaufmann, recently completed a research project on this topic. Such
difficulties are often based on stigma and prejudice on the part of employers
("other studies have found this too") as well as due to a lack of
experience among the young haredi graduates.

In
Israel, the problem is compounded. Not only is there an entire community that
simply shirks its responsibility in sharing the national burden of serving in
the army, pretending (to itself as well as others) that learning in kollel is an adequate
substitute).

It also drains from the national economy instead of contributing
to it (and I'm not just speaking about money - I am talking about not putting
skilled people into the workforce). The result is a community that is
fundamentally selfish - taking and not giving.

M., a teenage girl,
was attacked by a group of young yeshiva students on a Ganey Tikva street on
Sunday. According to the teen, the reason was her physical appearance, which
alludes to her sexual orientation.

M, 17, was walking
down the street in the central Israeli city – a route she said she has been
taking regularly over the past two years – when she was mobbed and assaulted.

Rabbi
Avrohom Yaakov Friedman, 84, the Admor of Sadigura, died at his home in Bnei
Brak on Tuesday morning after a long illness. The admor (the title given to the
leader of a Hasidic dynasty) collapsed at his home.

Minister
without Portfolio Meshulam Nahari secured NIS 2.1 million in state funds
without a tender for El Hama'ayan, a cultural organization operated by his
party. In addition, Nahari's staff failed to inform the officials who approved
the allocations of the organization's connection to Shas.

The money
was earmarked for "instilling cultural and social norms, kiruv (drawing
people closer to Judaism) and deepening the values of the heritage of Israel in
youth centers and among at-risk youth."

El
Hama'ayan's annual budget is around NIS 22 million, of which one third has
traditionally come from donations and the rest from the Education Ministry.

Over the past two years, however, El Hama'ayan has availed itself of a new
funding source: Nahari, whose portfolio in the Prime Minister's Office is
"society and the heritage of Israel."

Shas is illegally
using its Rabbi Ovadia Yosef smartphone application by offering blessings from
the party’s spiritual leader, religious freedom advocacy group Hiddush
complained to the Central Election Committee.

On Sunday, Shas
unveiled the app – called Maran Shelita, a Hebrew acronym for “the great rabbi,
who should live a good and long life” – which can be used to request blessings
from Yosef. Those who download the application can also watch a speech by the
rabbi, a video about his life and a daily lesson in Jewish law.

Shas'
problem isn't that it represents an ethnic group or a community, but that it
rejects other principles: the equality of the burden and the equality of
opportunity that comes with secular learning and work.

This
fusion, which combines ultra-Orthodoxy with ethnicity like two volatile
elements in a chemical compound, is what is creating the fear of the ethnic
genie. A society that knows how to respect and nurture ethnicities and cultures
doesn't turn them into genies.

A party that exploits a correct idea of ethnic
representation only to avoid the common burden destroys its ethnic group.

According to police
spokesman Shmuel Ben-Ruby, Feiglin, who is No. 23 on the joint Likud Beytenu
list, prostrated himself in the plaza and tried to pray out loud.

Praying
aloud, going through ritual motions or using any type of traditional prayer
objects such as tefillin, tallitot or prayer books, are forbidden for Jews at
Judaism’s holiest site due to tensions with Muslim worshipers at the Aksa
Mosque.

To bring Israeli-Ethiopian teens back
to their ancestral homeland, to show them the place they came from and the
world their parents grew up in, is the purpose of the Samai “birthright”
program, of which this was the pilot trip.

It’s the brainchild of Danny Adeno
Abebe, an Ethiopian-Israeli activist and Yedioth Ahronoth reporter, who claims
Ethiopian-Israeli youth are lost in their search for identity.

Samai seeks to boost the teens’ sense
of their Israeli selves through their Ethiopian-ness – an identity that’s been,
in part, stripped down and washed away during their process of adapting to a
new life in Israel — and help them integrate the two identities.

Don
Futterman is the Israel program director of the Moriah Fund and director of the
Israel Center for Educational Innovation.

Ethiopian
Israelis are careful to hide the friction between Beta Yisrael and Falashmura
and these other internal fissures from outsiders, for fear that they could
damage the community's public image, or that the discovery of internal biases -
which all groups have - would legitimize the racist attitudes that already
exist among outsiders.

Whenever something uncomplimentary comes out, outsiders
use it against them to show they are backward or that the problems are with the
Ethiopians themselves, not the racists.

Lederman, the oldest
person to immigrate to the Jewish state over the course of 2012, was among
nearly 18,000 who made aliyah this year, according to the Immigrant Absorption
Ministry. A similar number was recorded in 2011.

American
Jews want to know what is being done in their name. In the name of Judaism. And
if they think that it is self-destructive, oppressive, blockheaded and wrong,
it stands to reason they would want it to stop.

American
Jews are tiring of being told that opposing Israel's policies puts Israelis in
danger. Blackmail is not persuasion.

The Health Ministry
does not keep records on circumcisions but estimates about 60,000 to 70,000 are
held in Israel every year, which roughly corresponds to the number of boys born
in 2010, according to the Central Bureau of Statistics.

"It's such a
taboo in Israel and in Judaism," said Gali, nursing her six-week-old son,
about the decision not to have him circumcised.

The Health Ministry
does not keep records on circumcisions but estimates about 60,000 to 70,000 are
held in Israel every year, which roughly corresponds to the number of boys born
in 2010, according to the Central Bureau of Statistics.

The
operation addresses the kvura [burial] of thousands of body samples and parts
that were stored in the Abu Kabir Forensic Institute. Many of the specimens
will be in a common kever, but separate kvura will take place when the
situation permits.

Rabbi Yehuda Rosalio,
the former rabbi of the northwestern Negev community of Brosh, pleaded guilty,
Thursday, to charges stemming from his theft, about two months ago, of the
community's Torah scrolls.

The rabbi was convicted in the Be'er Sheva Magistrates
Court for aggravated theft, aggravated fraud, fraud, breach of trust and
causing insult to religion, among other charges.

The pews
of St. Anthony's Catholic Church in Jaffa were packed on Monday night for a
Christmas Mass attended by Arabs, Russians, Indians, Sri Lankans, Filipinos and
European tourists, not to mention a few curious Israeli Jews.

Father
Ramzi Sidawi, the parish priest, conducted the Midnight Mass in Arabic. He was
joined by Father Marcelo Ponpon, from the Philippines, and acolytes from Jaffa
dressed in crisp white robes.

Despite the impressive Christian
presence in the city’s history and contemporary landscape, the resident
Christian communities face a difficult demographic crisis. On the eve of
Christmas 2012, Christians constitute a tiny minority of Jerusalem’s
population, measuring 1.8%, as compared to 19% in 1946, towards the end of the
British Mandate era.